Man charged with homicide in drug overdose case

WISCONSIN RAPIDS - A man suspected of selling the heroin that caused a man's death last year in Wood County sold drugs to a confidential informant days before the overdose, according to court records.

Devin Y. Phillips, 30, formerly of Milwaukee, was charged Wednesday afternoon in Wood County with reckless homicide by delivery of drugs. Wood County Circuit Judge Todd Wolf sentenced Phillips on Oct. 11 to a 7.5-year prison sentence for delivery of heroin.

According to court documents:

A Wood County Sheriff's Department investigator-sergeant interviewed a confidential informant on May 11, 2016. The informant said he recently had bought heroin from Phillips. The informant, with the investigator with him, called Phillips and set up another heroin purchase.

Just before 6 p.m. May 17, 2016, police responded to a possible overdose by Lance G. Oligney, 54, of Wisconsin Rapids, at a home in the Wood County town of Seneca. Oligney was unconscious and not breathing. Oligney was pronounced dead at the home. An autopsy done the next day showed Oligney died of a heroin overdose.

Kenneth M. Slattery, 42, of Wisconsin Rapids, was at the home and said everyone there had been using heroin, including Oligney. Slattery said Oligney had arranged to buy heroin earlier on May 17. Slattery took Oligney to a Wisconsin Rapids parking lot where Oligney met Phillips. Oligney got into a vehicle with Phillips and when Oligney returned to Slattery's vehicle, he told Slattery he had bought heroin.

A week after Oligney's death, police conducted an undercover purchase of drugs from Phillips and when police arrested him, they found seven grams of heroin on Phillips.

A woman told investigators she routinely drove Phillips to Milwaukee and back to Wisconsin Rapids in exchange for him providing her with drugs. The woman told investigators she was with Phillips when he sold Oligney a bag of what she thought was heroin for $180 on May 17. She said at about 6:30 that night, Phillips told her Oligney died from an overdose and that Phillips needed her to take him back to Milwaukee immediately. The woman said Phillips was "freaking out" because he had sold Oligney the heroin that killed him.